


if i could ask a smoking gun

by orphan_account



Series: October Challenges 2019 [10]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Isabelle Lightwood, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Introspection, Isabelle Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, but she doesn't get them in this fic :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 04:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21030083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lightwood family dinners are always disastrous, and without Alec and Jace this one felt even worse than usual.





	if i could ask a smoking gun

**Author's Note:**

> For day 14 of Whumptober (tear-stained) and Flufftober (roommates), though this one is not at all fluffy. Title from Hearts by Jessie Were.

Lightwood family dinners are always disastrous, and without Alec and Jace this one felt even worse than usual. Max sulked, Maryse made hostile inquiries, Isabelle fended them off; eventually, the three of them settled into a painful quiet for the rest of the evening.

When she’d been ten and Max five, the two of them had spent weeks with their mother while Robert took Alec and Jace to London. She’d passed hours playing with Max, spent entire days chattering with her suddenly affectionate mother, being taught family recipes and having her hair braided. It was one of her best memories of childhood. Now she looks back, and thinks of the awkward distance between them all, and it makes her want to weep.

She tells herself the tears in her eyes are for missing that time - when things were simpler, when all of them were happier - and not because of what her mo- Maryse had said. The refusal to accept her sexuality, the staunch belief that it’s a phase, the insistence that she at least pretend Clary is her roommate instead of her girlfriend – it’s nothing new. it’s nothing Isabelle didn’t already know. It’s nothing worth crying over.

If Maryse were here, she’d tell Isabelle not to ruin her makeup, and suddenly that thought makes Izzy _furious_: at her father for distancing himself from this broken family, at her mother for being so judgmental and cruel to her children, and most of all at herself for still caring. She has a girlfriend and brothers who would do anything for her, friends who have become her family, a life she loves. It should be enough. It _is_ enough, but Izzy can’t shake the part of her that still wants her mother’s approval. The part that is still seven and asking _Mama, why can’t I be a doctor when I grow up_, sixteen and screaming _Mama, why do you think the things I wear make me worthless_, twenty two and admitting _Mama, I’m seeing a girl, her name is Clary and I think I might love her. _

No matter how old she is or how long it’s been since she loved her mother with a child’s idealistic admiration, there will always be a part of her that wants to say _this is who I am, please love me anyway_ and her mother’s answer will always be _no_. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't yet finished the fics for day 12 (oops) and day 15, but I am determined and they will be posted soon and the writer's block can bite me.


End file.
